


the stone and the fade

by cartographicalspine



Series: The Hearthkeeper [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Demons, Gen, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographicalspine/pseuds/cartographicalspine
Summary: Ansgar Aeducan learns about distinguishing realities and illusions in the Fade. And promptly gets to punch it all.
Series: The Hearthkeeper [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/887049
Kudos: 4





	the stone and the fade

**Author's Note:**

> Alternately: fade therapy, or friends decking friends to fight evil. Set in an AU where all the origins get to live, laugh, and love.

For a long time, the only sound in the hall was the steady dripping of Trian’s blood on the stone. She had been so painfully aware of every eye in the room on her, the weight of disappointment, criticism, and pity so familiar and intimate because it was entirely her own response reflected back at her. Bhelen hadn’t compelled one single action from her; the sword that ran Trian through was in her hand. 

Trian’s blood dripped from the end of the sword, _her_ sword, and she was still standing.

"It's about time, Ansgar."

The pronunciation was off, the armor didn’t sit properly, and frankly, others were far higher on her list of favorites, but Surana was an improvement over her current company. At least he wasn’t feigning concern like those fakes wearing her family’s flesh, though how she had taken him for Gavorn was beyond her.

As though reading her face, Surana explained as he removed the ill-fitting helm and plate, rolling his shoulders with the sudden absence of weight. “You saw what you...or rather, a part of you...wanted to see.”

Ansgar tossed the sword to the floor and swept her arm out in a wide gesture at the room, scoffing loudly. “I just hacked through Orzammar’s royal household, Surana. Whatever part of me that wants that is bronto dung.”

Surana was occupied with adjusting the sleeve of his robes. “I am not here to analyze your subconscious, and I suspect neither are the demons. Later, however, you might. On your own time, I’ll add.”

“Those things were demons.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but Ansgar felt like she had been trapped in the palace for an eternity. Certainty was hard to come by right now. “They look like dwarves, like the deshyrs, like my family. They were normal, they didn’t act like-”

She froze, turning her gaze warily at Surana and his cold, unchanging stare. “And you?”

He crooked a skeptical brow at her. “Were I a _demon_ , do you really think my best bet would be to disguise myself as someone you’ve known for months over your relatives and associates of years?”

Ansgar stalked towards him, slow and deliberate and barely in control. Her heart was pounding, but she despised the thought of giving in to anger again. Or worse, fear. “You brought it up, _pal_. Why should I trust you over my family, huh? Maybe I really did kill them all and you’re the demon doing it all.”

Surana closed his eyes and sighed heavily as she loomed over him. With her height, it was almost possible, or damn close to it.

“You really want this to be your fault, don’t you?”

“Isn’t it? You said this was my subconscious.”

“Now you’re being obtuse on purpose, Ansgar. Guilt does not implicate one of crime. And I said a part of you _wants_ this. Which in turn colors this entire experience.”

“If I’m being obtuse,” Ansgar spat the word back at him, dragging her hands through her hair as she paced the room, “it’s because there’s no nuance where I’m from. This whole...charade or whatever, this is essentially what happened down in Aeducan Thaig, as far as the Stone and the Memories are concerned. Either I’m a kinslayer or a pawn, and neither is the lesser evil here.”

“A ridiculous notion, really. I can tell you which one I would find far preferable.”

“This isn’t a joke, Surana.”

“I’m not joking.” 

Ansgar reached him in two steps, thank the Paragons for her long legs, and soundly struck him hard enough to send him to the floor. She dropped with him a split second later, pinning him to the ground not with her weight but with the dagger from her belt. The thin trickle of blood from where she pressed the blade into his skin was real enough, but it was the look in his eyes that sold her. She could see the white all around the iris, and it really made the outrage in his eyes pop. The others sometimes talked about Tabris and Mahariel and Amell, how their eyes attracted an aesthetic kind of attention. Even in Orzammar, elven and mage eyes were probably the second feature that anyone ever brought up about them. But Surana's eyes were a brown so dark that light rarely drew out any brightness from them. 

Surana glared at her from the corner of his eye until she eased up on the pressure enough that he could turn his face back to hers. “There are less physical ways to determine a demonic presence, you know.” 

“I don’t know, that felt really good.” Ansgar drew the dagger away from his cheek, but he didn’t make a move to wipe the blood away.

“Speak for yourself.”

“I am.” She shook her head at him and thought about the mortifying ordeal of having to face what they’d both just seen and heard. Sure, he said demons, but demons hadn’t forced her to run off at the mouth about things she didn’t even like to consider in the privacy of her own mind. _Damn demons…_ “The hell is this, Surana?”

“This would be the Fade, Ansgar."

Ansgar was of the Stone for a long, long time. Her entire life, really, up until the doors of Orzammar closed behind her forever. And up to this moment she had truly believed that somehow, impossibly, she was all the way back in the belly of the mountain, buried miles under the surface within the throne room at the royal palace. Stone, where she belonged. It was the furthest place from the Fade and demons and magic that she could conceive of, and some part of her mind was still rebelling against the idea. But the part of her that had seen through the illusion told her to look up, and she did. “By the sodding fucking stones of my ancestors…”

“Charming,” Surana sniffed, waiting until she fell back on her heels before trying to sit up. “Do try not to look at the center, if you don’t mind.”

Ansgar diverted her gaze immediately and swallowed down the bile in her throat. “No wonder you blighted surfacers are insane. Damnation…I think I prefer the demons to this.” 

He’d propped himself up on one elbow and was running a thumb along his lower lip and his teeth. His eyes flickered up at her when he reached a canine, and he lowered his hand slowly. “Are you alright?”

Ansgar hunched forward a little, marveling at how tense she felt when by all logic she wasn’t even really here, not physically. But then again, this was all far outside the scope of her logic, whether or not there was Stone left in her. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and inhaled sharply before giving him a short nod. “I...um, yeah. There’s a lot to unpack right this second, but you’re going to have to do some fast talking for any of this to make sense.”

“Fair enough, but you may have to hold that thought.” Surana glanced over her shoulder, and she followed his gaze to the corpses rising up from the stone, dwarves that were suddenly too long and contorted for the armor they wore. “Although...how do you feel about learning as we go?”

Ansgar bared her teeth and stood to meet Harrowmont’s shambling demon-self, an ugly, bloated facsimile of the coward that had watched the doors close on her living tomb. But if she squinted, the resemblance wasn’t as far off as before. “Funny, that’s just my style, teach.”

And she decked Harrowmont with all her strength behind it this time.

Somewhere behind her, she heard Surana give a tiny huff of exasperation, and she would have turned to get a good look at his face (because that was a damn good punch) if Frandlin Ivo hadn't already gotten in her flank. Hissing, she grappled him and drove her knee into his groin before shoving him off, tearing the sword from his hip just in time to catch Bhelen's and Trian's swords coming down on her.

It was easier to fight this time because she knew they weren't real, at least not in the "slaying her entire house" way, but the wounds still ran blood and stung badly. Cutting down her father stung much worse, even if she let Surana take him and her brothers down in the end. Demons or not, she kept turning the blade when they came at her.

With Surana, it was over faster and cleaner than her wild, desperate hacking from earlier; Mahariel's lessons were sticking well. He still cast primarily, and his swordwork was light, but Ansgar felt all the better to have it there.


End file.
